Bring Me Back To Life
by mp523
Summary: The day SHIELD called Dr. Evelyn Clark to identify her brother's body was the day her life fell apart. But it's funny how the world that can cruelly take everything away from us can give it back in the most unexpected ways. Thor x OC
1. Lay Me Gently in the Cold Dark Earth

**I don't own Avengers or anything Marvel related!**

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Bracing herself for the cold, Evelyn stepped out of her car and shut the door behind her. She pulled her black peacoat closer around her and continued toward the gravesite.

Each step she took was harder than the last.

It would be so easy to turn around and drive away. Easier to pretend none of this had ever happened and that Jackson was still oversees and would be coming home soon. But Evelyn knew she owed it to Jackson's memory so she kept walking.

As she approached the congregation, she slid on a pair of sunglasses. If she was going to cry here, she would be damned before she let Fury see her tears. She could see him now, standing to the left of her brother's casket, head bowed and trench coat blowing in the wind. As if he had any right to stand there and watch Jackson's funeral. Maria and Coulson were with Fury, but none of them had seen Evelyn yet.

She came to a stop beside her great-aunt and reached down to hold her hand. This was the woman who had raised Evelyn and Jackson, after their parents passed away, but she could never know the truth about his death. Technically, Evelyn wasn't supposed to know either- the comings and goings of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were usually closely guarded secrets- "Level 8 Stuff" as Fury liked to say. But working as a doctor at S.H.I.E.L.D had its perks at the time, it gave her a high enough clearance level to pry the details about Jackson's last mission out of Fury.

Fury had sent Jackson on what Evelyn considered a suicide mission, not that Jackson would have seen it that way. He was far too noble for that. If there was one thing she knew about Jackson, it was that he loved this world and all the people in it, starting with his family. He had been honored to have the opportunity to fight for, and defend the people he loved so much.

It seemed that the information she now knew about Jackson's death was not well known at S.H.I.E.L.D., but of course, the two people Evelyn still trusted at S.H.I.E.L.D. knew. Coulson and Maria Hill knew everything Fury knew, sometimes more. They were the ones who, when Evelyn demanded the truth from Fury, took her side and convinced him to hand over Jackson's file.

The file though, Evelyn wished she took Coulson's advice when he told her not to jump in and start digging. There were things in there, details and pictures that Evelyn still had nightmares about. She didn't know how Jackson had been able to act so carefree when he was around her after he had done everything in that file. But then again, that's what S.H.I.E.L.D did, they trained their agents in the arts of lies and deception.

None of that mattered to Evelyn now, all that mattered was that her brother was dead, the people who murdered him didn't pay for their crime and that her aunt would never know the truth about the man she raised.

Evelyn had been called to identify his body while their Aunt had been made to believe he was killed during a training exercise when his equipment malfunctioned. It was the perfect explanation for the closed casket funeral. S.H.I.E.L.D. had told her Great-Aunt Carolyn his body was so badly burned in the crash that he was unidentifiable. As any mother would, Carolyn wanted to see the boy she raised before he was taken away from her for good. But Evelyn had begged Carolyn to remember Jackson as he was when he was alive rather than a corpse at the funeral home. Eventually Carolyn, although heart broken,

Evelyn would never be able to tell her aunt that Jackson's body wasn't burned; it had been mutilated. He had been tortured for weeks before his captors had put him out of his misery. And it had taken nearly a week after that for S.H.I.E.L.D. to finally bring his body home. Evelyn couldn't bear the thought of letting her aunt know Jackson had suffered at all, and so that was a secret she would take to the grave. As per her SHIELD training, she deceived Carolyn, told her Jackson died doing what he loved.

Despite the atrocities Jackson had endured, he would still be buried among lies. He was a hero, and deserved to be remembered as one by his family, but S.H.I.E.L.D had taken that away from him when they locked up his mission file and threw away the key.

As the ceremony began, Evelyn gripped Carolyn's hand tighter and stood up straighter, now was not the time to show weakness. Evelyn had to put on a calm facade and be there in whatever way her great-aunt would need, that's what Jackson would do if he were still alive.

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 _ **Authors Note: First time writing, let me know what you think!**_

 **1\. And please tell me if you think Evelyn is a Mary-Sue! We definitely can't have that happening.**

 **2\. S/o to anyone who knows the songs my Title and Chapter titles come from**

 **3\. Also, I want to write this as a (Thor x Evelyn) or (Captain Rogers x Evelyn), who do you think Evelyn should be with?**

 **I have a lot more planned out, hopefully I can crank out a chapter a week. Please stick with me!**


	2. But If You Close Your Eyes

When Evelyn decided to stop driving, she was in Ely, Minnesota,

Ely was a small town, population- 3,000; average temperature- 40 degrees Fahrenheit; closest hospital- 35 miles away. None of that, however, deterred Evelyn. Ely was precisely what she needed, clean air, friendly faces and no one from SHIELD.

The people here were kind and generous. They didn't have an ulterior motive for being friendly, a stark contrast from most of the people she knew SHIELD. And being around them helped Evelyn.

One day, three years since Jackson's death, She thought to herself, "I finally have the courage to open his door." And with that revelation, she had been able to let go of some of the hatred she had for Fury.

Still, she never flew back east to see her Great-Aunt Carolyn, instead, she flew Carolyn out to Minnesota every chance she got. In those 4 years since Jackson's death, she had built a new life for herself as a physician at the only clinic in town. New friends, occasionally a new lover- boring compared to her life at S.H.I.E.L.D. but overall, a peaceful life.

 _Present Day_

It had been a long week at the work but now that she was finally no longer on-call, Evelyn was looking forward to good food and proper sleep. As she pulled into her driveway, she glanced at the clock on the dashboard, the blinking green lights showed 9:47. It was rather later than she had expected to be home but the icy roads called for a slower speed. She parked the car and sat back for a moment, closing her eyes and enjoying the feeling of calm after a hectic day. Mustering her last bit of strength, she grabbed her bag from the passenger side, slid out from behind the wheel and shut the car door behind her.

Entering the empty, quiet house, she shut the front door and headed straight for the kitchen for a glass of wine. Without even bothering to kick off her heels or turn on the lights, she maneuvered around the dark kitchen, dropping her bag on the kitchen island and reaching up to get a wine glass while she considered what kind of wine she was in the mood for.

"I'll have a glass too, if you don't mind," came a quiet voice from the dark corner of the kitchen.

She gasped and spun around flinging the glass into the dark, hoping it made contact with the intruder.

She heard a soft muffled sound and assumed he caught the glass. She blindly felt around behind her for the light switch, trying to keep the kitchen island between her and the voice in the dark.

As the lights flooded on, her eyes focused on the man calmly sitting at the barstool on the other side of the island. Seemingly not having made a move other than to place the wine glass upright on the granite counter.

"Phil!" Anite exclaimed.

"I'm sorry," he said contritely, "I didn't mean to startle you like that. Just thought it would be a little more dramatic." He shrugged, remorsefully.

"What the hell are you doing here? Sitting in the dark like that!" Evelyn's right hand was on her chest, trying to calm her breathing. Her left hand was braced against the wall.

He got up and walked around the island toward the wine rack. He knew better than to approach her immediately, so he busied himself with selecting a bottle of wine.

"Any preference?" he asked as he turned to her and held up two bottles.

"The Riesling," Evelyn responded decisively.

"I should have guessed," he replied with a smile, sliding the bottle of red wine back onto the rack, "You were always partial to a good white."

As she turned to the cabinet behind her to pull another glass out, he turned to her with a questioning look, "Corkscrew…?"

"The drawer by your left hand," she responded as she took a step toward the island and placed the second wine glass down next to the first.

He pulled the drawer open and found what he was looking for. He opened the bottle and handed it to her. She poured a generous amount of the white wine into the glass and silently extended it out to him. While she was filling up her class, he studied her.

Four years ago, she was the brightest star at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical research facility- handpicked by the best because she was going to be the best. Now, she had dead-ended herself by hiding away in this small town. She looked quite the same, but also remarkably different. She wore her hair down and longer than she did four years ago. She dressed differently too, more like a grown woman than a college girl. The dark green dress screamed professional in a way that told him she no longer thought about the cutting-edge research she had been leading several years ago. He supposed they had all grown up quite a bit in the past 4 years.

His eyes swept up and met her intense gaze, she let the silence in the room lay between them like a wall, he knew he would have to be the one to speak first. He leaned against the counter and took a deep breath, she wasn't going to make this easy for him, he thought. As he considered the best way to approach the topic on his mind, she turned and slid into the seat he had abandoned moments before. She took another long sip of wine and set the glass down and watched ad he prepared himself for what was no doubt going to be another overly dramatic sentence.

He adjusted his stance so he was squarely facing her and still leaning against the counter began, "What do you remember about the AVENGERS initiative?"


End file.
